Saturday, December 31, 2011

2012: Birthing the New Year


 Sterile Technique: Welcome To The World, Child Of My Heart, 2008 

The collages that accompany today’s post grew out of the experiences of a pregnant woman in one of my dream groups, who dreamed that she was strapped on a metal conveyance that ran on a track inside a huge industrial building. Helplessly, her arms strapped to her sides, she was submitted to mechanical and invasive procedures. The nightmare was so disturbing that she awoke shaken, unable to forget the terrifyingly soulless powers that had stolen her rightful liberty and enforced such misery and humiliation.

As we worked the dream, it became clear that the birth of her first child had been a waking nightmare. It took place in a hospital where she was treated like a slab of meat and her wishes for this precious event were ignored. Clearly, the dream demonstrated her feelings about repeating such a demeaning experience, with her second delivery. Working together, the women of the group helped validate this woman’s need to give birth in circumstances that were supportive, intimate and loving. In the end, she delivered at home, with the help of a midwife and with her husband and first child present.

 Delivery Channel With Screw Gears:Welcome To The World, 
Child of My Heart, 2008

This story demonstrates the responsibility each of us has, to ourselves and to the New Year, to create the optimum environment for the fresh new energies about to be birthed. A New Year is arriving, tonight. Like any newborn, it is tender and innocent; untrammeled by the weary ways of the world; not yet subject to the fears promulgated by the Powers That Were. Even the most world-weary and cynical among us must surely be touched by the hope and promise of what is birthed, tonight: a fresh start, a new beginning, a clean slate.

There are many things each of us can do to insure that the New Year’s Baby is kindly treated and lovingly nurtured. In the secret recesses of our hearts, we know what we are doing to disrupt the tranquil energies, to malnourish the new, and to demean the intimate. Like responsible parents who must make sacrifices for the best and highest good of all, we, too, can turn a new leaf, resolve and follow through, promote love despite the cost.

May this New Year, 2012, receive the most loving and responsible parenting from us all. May we exert ourselves in its behalf. May we love it into growth and fullness. And in the process, may each of us grow and blossom, in return.

Blessings of parenthood to you all and the happiest of New Years, filled with abundance and wonderful surprises!

                Welcome To The Tribe, Child of My Heart, 2008



Friday, December 30, 2011

Quote of the Day

                                                     Dance! 2004

The future's just like the present, only longer.
--Yogi Berra

The New Year is coming, and since the future is going to be so long, let's dance more and argue less; make love, not war; tend the Earth as if our lives depended on it; and root love deeper and surer than ever, in our homes, communities, country, world and hearts.

                                                     Yggdrasil 2004

Thursday, December 29, 2011

GOOD NEWS!

                                                         Resurrection, 1995

I just received an email from my publisher, Lou Aronica of Fiction Studio Books, saying he has read the synopsis and first one hundred pages of my next novel, Fiesta of Smoke, and wants to publish it! It reads:

Happy New Year. I've had the chance to read the portion and synopsis for Fiesta of Smoke, and I think you have a winner. The quality of your writing is as strong as ever, but I think the story has the potential to reach a much wider audience. I'd be glad to put it on the Fiction Studio Books list.

We had discussed this possibility previously, and he will need the completed manuscript sometime around the end of March or beginning of April, which means I'll have to write like the wind. I apologize, in advance, if there are some days when I don't post a new piece to this blog. To reward your patience with that, I'll post short excerpts, from time to time, of the work in progress. I'll be most interested in your opinion! Fiesta of Smoke is a book close to my heart. I've been working on it for almost 30 years! So stay tuned: I hope to have Fiesta of Smoke in your hands by July.

This is an exciting way to end one year and begin the next! I wish each one of you an auspicious New Year, filled with wonderful surprises and a rich abundance of those things dear to your heart.

                                                           Ra, 1995

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Quote of the Day


The great soul of which we are all a part may dream through us, in our manner of dreaming, its own secret dreams.
--Thomas Mann

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Quote of the Day


The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.
-- Albert Einstein

Monday, December 26, 2011

Quote of the Day

The nearest.
--Henry David Thoreau, when asked at table which dish he preferred.

This could have been my response to any one of the dishes David created for both our Christmas Eve supper and our Christmas dinner. Starting with a couple of gallons of cioppino, containing over 5 pounds of fish and shellfish and three-quarters of a pound of butter, baguettes and a crisp green salad, we moved on, through a 24-hour period, to roast chicken stuffed with mushrooms, home-grown broccali with anchovies (a curious recipe from Italy that proved to be a real keeper), Turnips Anna and savory bread stuffing, all washed down with much wine and followed up with port, just for good measure, and spiced with the relish of good conversation. How blessed we are, to sit down in peace to such abundance! It is my sincere wish that each of you enjoyed the delights of food and drink and conviviality, this Christmas, and that this joy lights the way toward the happiest of New Years.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Warmest Wishes


MERRY CHRISTMAS
from our house to yours!
Many blessings attend you and yours,
this day and always.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

The Children of Christmas Eve


Fra Lippo, we have learned from thee
A lesson of humanity:
To every mother's heart forlorn,
In every house the Christ is born.
--R.W. Gilder, A Madonna of Fra Lippo Lippi

Over 50% of children in the United States are living in poverty. When I think of them, I recall the legend sometimes carved over the entryways of Scottish castles: Often, often, often, comes the Christ in the stranger's garb. Every child, indeed every living creature, partakes of the Christ. Let us all remember to be generous, in this season of giving, so that the Christ in us all will not go wanting.  


Friday, December 23, 2011

Quote of the Day


I can do no great things, only small things with great love.
--Mother Teresa

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Quote of the Day

Nothing, not all the armies in the world, can stop an idea whose time has come.
--Victor Hugo

As much as I sometimes lament the electronic bombardment that characterizes the 21st century, there a moments when the realization that it is of enormous value becomes crystal clear. One such moment is Youtube's video of Egypt's Girl in the Blue Bra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf_0p4a_GwI

If you have not yet seen this footage, prepare to be shocked and outraged, as are the protesters in Tahrir Square:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTYcjnxrXoc&feature=relmfu

Let us all stand in solidarity with our Egyptian sisters and brothers, as a true international commune of women and men. Recent violence against protesters in the U.S.A. demonstrates that the plight of the protester is an international issue, one that should be of gravest concern to us all.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
--Thomas Jefferson

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Winter Solstice: A Single Flame



When I was teaching creative writing in the prison, I wanted to do something special for my students for the holidays. Christmas was only days after our next class, but I was forbidden to bring cookies or candies inside, for security reasons. How could I help these men anchor within themselves a sense of the true meaning of the holy days, especially when not all were Christian, but Jewish and Muslim, as well? The day of class arrived and still I had not solved my dilemma.

 And then, it came to me: it was Winter Solstice! The day when the Sun reaches its most extreme southern position, and the shortest day of the year. For several years I had been telling myths to my students and they always received these oral offerings with  an intense, hungry, listening silence. I knew that they were being fed at the deepest levels by these archetypal accounts. So I would tell them a story that could unify all their varied belief systems: the return of Light after darkness. This theme would have special meaning for them, I reasoned, as captives of a miserably dark system.

I went to work prepared to break the law. In my coat pocket was secreted a small, illegal, but precious gift. The class was large, that wintry evening, and their energy was intense but subdued. The holidays were always a hard time for them, away from their families, away from the radiance of festivity and joyous communal celebration. As always, they asked that the classroom lights be turned off, so that only the yard lights filtered in through the high, clerestory windows. They lived 24 hours a day drenched in harsh prison lighting and one small gift I could give them, each meeting, was to allow them this softening of the environment. 

In this dim atmosphere, I began class by explaining how much I wanted to bring something special to them for the holidays, and how the usual gifts were forbidden. Slowly, I eased into the realm of spirit, keeping my voice low, waiting for the moment when their rapt, listening hunger crystallized in the room. 

Our ancestors, I explained, from times long before the advent of our present-day religions, had celebrated the cycles of the seasons and the wheeling of the stars in the heavens. And tonight was one of the most sacred of holy days for those ancient people – the shortest day of the year.

I invited them to imagine how, in those pre-scientific times, it might have seemed to those people, as the days grew shorter and colder. What if this trend never stopped, but continued until all was endless night? The terror of such a possibility must have been a leaden darkness in their hearts. So, to ward off this apparent inevitability, rites were performed; prayers were spoken; sacrifices were made. This day, Winter Solstice, marked the profundity of despair and the dawning of hope because, surely as the Sun rises in the morning, the very next day was longer than its predecessor. Light was returning to the world!

It must be like this for them, I said. Their time in prison was a long, cold diminishing of the light, and perhaps it seemed as if they might never be done with it; that it would grow more shadowy and more intensely isolating until their lives were obliterated in endless darkness. So, tonight, we were going to create a ritual, just as our ancestors had done before us, to affirm the return of Light after darkness.

By this time, the room was sunk in an umbrous hush. The men, lulled by my voice, were sinking slowly into their pain and loss, their sense of entrapment, of being enclosed in darkness. This was the time to reveal my gift. I reached into my coat pocket and withdrew the stub on a votive candle, and a single wooden match. Slowly, ceremoniously, I struck the match and lit the candle. All eyes were on the lambent flame as it flickered, then rose up, like a single teardrop of fire.
  
I glanced around the circle of faces, black, brown, white, as the single flame’s chiaroscuro etched their faces with both grief and hope. Not a few sparked with the glint of tears. The banal and lifeless room disappeared and its energy became thick and warm, as surely as if we were a clan safely gathered deep in a cave around a sacred fire. 

Almost in a whisper, I invited them to take out their notebooks and write about their personal darkness and what the return of the Light might look like for them. Without a word, moving cautiously, as if not to rupture the fragility of the holy moment, this usually rambunctious group opened their books and began to write. Often, they would stop to gaze at the flame in the center of the table, then dive again into writing.

We had been immersed in this sacred space for perhaps half an hour, when one of the men suddenly hissed, “Cops!” Without an instant’s hesitation I swiped the candle from the table. Hot wax cascaded over my hand, searing my skin. Not a second later, two correctional officers stepped through the classroom door.

I tucked my throbbing, wax-coated hand inside my jacket and turning to them with my most beguiling smile said, “Good evening, gentlemen,”  praying that they would not smell candle smoke.

 They, however, were standing in astonished confusion, staring around the room at my quiet students, who looked up at them briefly and then continued writing. I don’t know what those two officers expected, as they snuck down the long hallway, holding their keys against themselves, to keep them from jingling. An orgy? A drug meet? Surely, the silence of my classroom must have suggested something quite other than what their surprise visit revealed: a quiet circle of men, intensely writing.

Perhaps, too, the atmosphere of the room, which I can only describe as liquid love, disconcerted them. “Would you like to join us?” I asked sweetly. But they were already backing out of the room, a comedic embarrassment close to panic written on their faces.

 I used to think, sometimes, that an angel with a fiery sword stood outside my classroom, protecting us, allowing us to build an atmosphere in which love and the affirmation of our humanness could well up. Certainly, that Winter Solstice night was one such occasion. As I peeled the now hardened red wax from my hand and made an inane comment about almost being caught red-handed, the men and I exchanged knowing smiles. The candle was back in my pocket, but we had Light in our hearts that no short and icy day, no correctional officer, no prison, could extinguish.

        
        

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Quote of the Day


We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
--Anton Chekhov

This time of year, as the days shorten and the sun sets far to the south, the dusk comes quickly, in shades of blue and silver. The night sky is velvet black, studded with diamond stars. One of the greatest gifts my mother ever gave me came on such a night. I found her leaning against the kitchen sink, gazing out at the throbbing night sky. "These are the nights when the Wise Men walk," she said in a voice so soft I hardly caught it. In that one sentence, my mother, whose inner workings were mysterious and unspoken, revealed a depth of soul that touched my own. I shall never again see the deep black sky of the holy days, the radiance of the stars, without thinking both of her and of the Wise Men. May the Wise Men walk right into the capitals of this world and establish the peace we have been promised for so long. And may the angels grace your home with their presence, and the Star of guidance shine upon you.  
 

Monday, December 19, 2011

Winter Communion

                               Through a windshield fogged with rain
I see it:

A 14-foot high inflatable
Rubber cellular phone

Gray and whipped by wind
Lashed down with wire barbs
Of shining Christmas lights.

I’ve just come from Indian dinner
Served by a shy dark man
With a harelip and a sweet smile
Who “talked to the owner”
To get our puries free
This one time, only.

Well fed, I say,
At the breast of Mother India
On ghee and goat's milk
Rice, cumin and curry;

Semi-blissful,
Still reverberating with sitar --
when this monstrous equipment
Rears off the sidewalk at me.

They say that in the Russian Middle Ages
Huge bronze bells were cast
In pits
And raised on ropes
To ring out over the steppes
In direct communication
With God.

But this unholy conjunction
Of Christian holiday
And gizmo gigantism, now –

With what god
Of what infernal region
Might it hope to speak?

I reach for the barfi milkcakes
In the box beside me
On the seat.

O Sweet Mother India!
I suckle at your breast;
Shall sleep against it, tonight

While my soul flies out
A long reverberation
On the dark, sharp air

Crying out praises
Through the crystal cells
Of the body of  this
O so holy night.


Sunday, December 18, 2011

Quote of the Day


If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate.
--Terry Tempest Williams

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Quote of the Day

The works you see are segments of my work life. If you prefer one work over another, it is your privilege, but it does not interest me. The work is a statement of identity, it comes from a stream; it is related to my past works, the three or four works in process and the work yet to come.
--David Smith

Friday, December 16, 2011

Quote of the Day


Late, late have I loved thee, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new.
--St. Augustine, Confessions

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Quote of the Day


The surface of things gives delight; their inwardness gives life.
--Piet Mondrian

Among my favorite things in life are the humble implements that fall to hand, every day,  in my kitchen. Especially dear to me are those items that have come to me from my family: my great-grandmother's enamelware pan, her wooden-handled German steel spatula,  my grandmother's coin silver spoons, my mother's dishes and demitasses. And then there are the things I've collected as much for their aesthetic qualities as for their utility: linen tea towels, a Depression glass honey pot in the shape of a beehive, wooden spoons hand-carved by the Tarahumara in Copper Canyon, mismatched brown transferware plates, more teapots than the law allows. Each day it is my privilege and pleasure to reach for these sturdy and enduring items and find them ready, like good and noble friends, to greet the day with me. I shape my hand to them without a thought, knowing their weight and curvature. My eyes fall on their color and texture in simple joy. In this season of miracles, it seems no less miraculous that these old friends wait, each day, to join me in my humble tasks, uncomplainingly, peacefully and with good will.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Quote of the Day


Consciously or unconsciously, artists are obeying Socrates' advice: "Know thyself." Consciously or unconsciously, artists are studying and investigating their material, weighing the spiritual value of those elements with which it is their privilege to work.
--Wassily Kandinsky

In 1998, I began a series of 14 paintings based on the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris, in one part of which the god Osiris is trapped inside a tree. This idea of god energy residing in helpless containment fascinated me, reminding me of times in my own life when it seemed that the potential I possessed resided deep inside, unavailable for the ego's use. At the same time, I discovered C.G. Jung's dictum, "containment precedes regeneration."  This profoundly hopeful insight led to a series of both painted and sculpted seed images. Last evening, on my usual walk, I was snapping away with my camera at the light of the setting sun penetrating the now naked black oak woods. Suddenly, it was as if I were looking at one of my own paintings, from 13 years before. It was a surprising know thyself moment, in which the source of that painting, the god lying fallow in the surrounding woods, made himself known to me. Here, indeed, was revealed the spiritual value of the materials with which it has been my privilege to work!
                                                                Containment, 1998

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Quote of the Day

                                                                            Seed, 1998

Yes, painting means clothing the processes of the human soul in plastic forms; it means to be a poet, a creator, to enrich life by new views.
--Frantisek Kupka
 

                                                              Pomegranate, 1999

Monday, December 12, 2011

Quote of the Day


The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
--Anais Nin

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Quote of the Day


We fear our highest possibilities (as well as our lowest ones). We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.
--Abraham Maslow

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Quote of the Day


If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
--Henry David Thoreau

Friday, December 9, 2011

Maclovio & the Squirrel: A Saga


As Mother to a lifetime of rescued Fur Children, I’ve learned a certain tolerance and compassion. These poor creatures often come to me in pitiable state – thin, sad-eyed and love-starved and likely to dodge a proffered hand as if it held an incipient blow. One of my life’s joys is to watch as, over weeks or months, their defenses come down, their coats become glossy and they actually seek me out for strokes.

They can be trying, as any children can be. Just this very morning, I lay in bed before dawn listening to Sophie, the cat, up-chucking in the living room, below. What a great way to greet the day! But I wasn’t annoyed with Sophie; I simply warned myself to remember that there was a pile of unpleasantness down there and not to step in it when I descended. Because there’s very little else, except absolute catastrophe, that gets your day off to a worse start than stepping barefooted into cat vomit. (As it turned out, Sophia had judiciously deposited her offering on the stone hearth, missing the Persian carpet by three inches, an aim for which I was deeply grateful.)

So, it takes quite a bit for one of the kids to ruffle my feathers. And therein lies the tale, because our newest Child, Maclovio the Chihuahuense, managed to do so, last evening. I had just gotten home from a dream group and wanted to get a walk in, before sunset. So I threw on my ancient walking shoes and, still in my professional finery, off we went, with Maclovio prancing in the lead. We had a fine ramble to the top of the mountain and turned for home. Just a couple of hundred yards from the house, Mac spotted a squirrel and raced to the chase. Usually this is a short but exhilarating contest in which Mac runs to the base of the tree up which the squirrel has briskly disappeared, and barks. This squirrel did not bound for the closest tree trunk, however. In fact, it didn’t run at all, but rather scuttled close to the ground, giving Mac plenty of time to approach it.

I was immediately concerned that the squirrel might be rabid. It was a fat, healthy-looking creature with a full winter coat and a glorious plume of tail. Yet it clearly could barely walk, let alone climb. Maybe she was sick, or possibly pregnant and about to give birth. At any rate, she was not much smaller than Maclovio and she stood up to his advance with considerable ferocity, which brought him to a standstill. Nevertheless, before I could intervene, she had scuttled down the road bank into the brush, with Mac, his nose thrust at her like a rapier, in close pursuit. No amount of whistling and calling could dislodge Mac from what had clearly become an instantaneous monomania.

I was completely frustrated. The sun was approaching the western horizon and night falls swiftly, these brief evenings before the Winter Solstice. The brush into which the protagonists had disappeared is thick and so matted as to be almost impenetrable, and grows on a very steep slope. Yet it was becoming increasingly clear that, to save Maclovio from becoming Mac the Snack to any passing nocturnal carnivore, be it fox, coyote, bobcat or mountain lion, I would have to bravely go where no Fur Child Mother had ever gone before.

I began my rescue mission by descending to an old road that, almost completely overgrown with brush and overhung with branches, still offered a better approach than a direct downhill frontal assault. Bent double, I bobbed and wove my way around the shoulder of the hill to where the road dead ends, only a hundred yards, I surmised, from where my bold pet was facing off with the squirrel. From there, I headed diagonally uphill in a roughly south-easterly direction, using occasional sharp yips from Mac as my guidance system.

My troubles commenced immediately upon leaving the road. The slope is very steep and covered in Mountain Misery, a member of the rose family that grows ankle-deep and very dense, and is like trudging through an army of small, clutching hands. On top of this were sheaves of dry pine needles brought down by the Mono winds, just days before. The combination was much like walking on grease-on-a-slant. And with every slip and slither, I was menaced by dead manzanita, barbed with spiky, iron-hard branches like a ninja throwing star. Beneath the ground cover, my blind feet were also encountering other obstacles that rolled and tripped with every step, while, throughout, I was bent double, dodging overhanging branches.

My mood was rapidly descending from frustration to indignation, when I spotted him. Maclovio stood with all four legs spread wide, a stance of indomitable determination, his exophthalmic brown eyes riveted on what appeared to be a severed squirrel tail. “Oh no!” cried I. “You didn’t kill it, did you?” Mac paid me not the slightest heed, as I slogged as rapidly as possible up the hill in the failing light, expecting a blood bath. Only to discover that the squirrel’s tail was still nicely attached to its owner, who lay beneath the Mountain Misery, muttering in helpless aggravation.

In one swoop, I plucked Maclovio from his vigil and, tucking him into my left armpit like a football and uttering a brief apology to the squirrel, who stared at me with all the awe that should be accorded the epiphany of a rescuing, avenging goddess, I turned uphill toward home. I was only about a hundred yards below the road where this entire fiasco commenced but it felt like a mile. I slipped and slithered and backslid about halfway, until I met a solid wall of brush through which it was impossible to proceed in any fashion except on all fours – which were actually all threes, due to my grip on Maclovio.

It would probably be amusing to note my attire for this pursuit, it being composed of a hip-length black velvet shirt, clasped at the neck by an antique cameo the size of a small bar of soap, topped with a black faux-mink vest. My hair, because it is very curly, is always greedily claiming for itself, under the best of circumstances, bits of passing foliage. So I leave it to your imagination what it collected during that uphill crawl. Suffice it to say that, later that evening when I bent gratefully over my dinner plate, a small shower of leaves and twigs fell into my mashed potatoes.

Throughout our tortured ascent, Maclovio remained remarkably passive, although possibly he was suffering slight asphyxia from the clamp my elbow held on him. Finally, we arrived at the last barrier, the almost vertical road bank, 10 feet high and covered in Mountain Misery. By this time, frustration and indignation had given way to pure pique which has, I found, a marvelous propulsive power. I dug my feet into the dirt, gripped what I hoped was a substantial handful of undergrowth in my free hand and, snarling imprecations against all manner of unrelated people, places and things, clawed my way to the top. With one final, giant step, during which my knee was higher than my head, I pulled myself up onto the road bed and, without missing a beat, headed for home, my errant Child still tucked into my armpit.

I assure you, Army Rangers would be impressed by the terrain I navigated, last night. All that was missing, as I wormed my way through the thicket, was live ammo streaking over my head. And how many special forces maneuvers include packing along a live dog?

When we finally got home, and with Mac still tucked under my arm, I immediately blockaded the dog door. Just as I imagined, the minute his feet hit the floor, Mac was headed for his door, to return to the scene of glory. That squirrel was the biggest quarry he’d ever brought to ground and, by God, he was not going to let it go lightly. Frustrated in his attempts to get out, he spent the remaining evening uttering anguished little gurgles meant, I’m sure, to express how unfair, unkind and how utterly lacking in compassion David and I were, to deny him this ultimate pleasure.

At last, worn out by our exertions, we both headed for the third floor and bed. Now, Mac weighs only 13 pounds so it is a mystery how this delightful little dog can turn into an ingot of pure pig iron, just by closing his eyes. In sleep he magically assumes a specific gravity approaching that dense cosmic material one cubic centimeter of which, if placed on the surface of the earth, would pass right through it and out the other side. No amount of hip thrusts or full body rolls can dislodge him in the night and, once he has positioned himself, the blankets are immovably fixed until morning. David, who could sleep through the Apocalypse, is no help whatsoever. So I spent a restless night, half-uncovered, while they both snoozed blissfully the whole night through. When I finally did doze off, just before dawn, it was only to be almost immediately awakened by Sophia’s digestive upset.

This started out as a recommendation for rescued Fur Children. But then I diverged. Nevertheless, I stick by my original assertion: Fur Children are a joy. I’m not sure how that follows from the story I’ve just told you. You’ll have to work that part out for yourself, because I just spotted Maclovio pensively destroying David’s favorite pencil. Or maybe he’s starting his memoirs. Or writing a letter of complaint to the Humane Society. Anyway, I’ve got to go now. Have a joyful day!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Quote of the Day

It's not difficult to compose, but it's wonderfully difficult to let the superfluous notes fall under the table.
--Johannes Brahmes

 I am right in the middle of writing a story of last evening's heroic events, involving our Fur Child, Maclovio the Chihuahua, a sluggish squirrel, a very steep and overgrown mountain slope, and me. Sadly, I must rush off to an appointment, so the tale will have to wait until tomorrow but rest assured, I have been madly composing and then throwing words under the table in your behalf, since before dawn. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Quote of the Day

                                                                    Incantation, 1992

Nothing is more cheerful than the urge to commit art.
--Garrison Keillor

On the days when I take the time to paint at my easel, to cut and paste a collage at my work table or to wander about with my camera being amazed by the beauty and variety of the world, I am so happy! The same is true if I'm exploring a new recipe with ingredients that are strange to me -- what a wonderful alchemical laboratory the kitchen becomes! Time, as José Argüelles says, is not money -- it's art! Even the words we speak or write can be crafted with a reverence for connection, honoring and clarity; for  honesty, compassion and upliftment. Whatever your tasks, today, whatever your needs, let loose the urge to commit art into them, and see what results; what amazing thing is birthed, right out of the center of your being. I wish you a day filled with good cheer!

Signs of Life:
For a heartwarming story and a demonstration of how good cheer works, go to
http://www.godvine.com/Thrown-Away-Dog-Saves-a-Little-Girl-from-Death-671.html
                                                                Birth of Horus, 1992